Agreed that Kane was severely under hyped. Heck, he was barely rated as a first rounder before his draft year started. He was definitely a bit of a late bloomer. I think Bedard was definitely a more NHL ready prospect than Kane, despite being a bit younger.
I think the WJC is really not that relevant. Bedard was obviously incredible but it's a very small sample.
Kane's supporting cast was certainly better though. That's indisputable. But it's really hard to make any definite conclusions about that, as Bedard's style is a lot less dependent on who he plays with IMO. That's why he's able to lap his teammates in scoring to such an extent. Conversely, I think Kane's productivity is more elastic / sensitive to his linemates, which makes sense as he's more of a playmaker.
So if Kane was playing with the 2023 Pats, his numbers would probably suffer a bit, but I'm not so sure if Bedard's numbers would change all that much if he were playing with the 2007 Knights.
Both great prospects. I'd probably give the slight edge to Bedard because of his release and the fact he may end up a center but honestly they aren't that far off. Kane's ability to create time and space with his hands and feet were both superior IMO, which helps offset some of Bedard's projected advantages.
For the record I thought Hughes, Matthews, and Eichel were also slightly better prospects than Kane.
I think you're writing off both points for not great reasons:
1) WJCs
Disregarding WJC performances if the difference was a point or two, sure, totally agree. But it wasn't a small difference - Bedard put up literally the best WJC production
ever by a draft eligible player, by a wide margin too. The previous single-tourney record for a draft eligible player was 18 points, Bedard put up an insane 23 points. Kane put up 9, and he was 8 months older than Bedard.
Re: sample size, it's not just this one tourney, Bedard put up insane performances over 3 years:
D-2 season:
- 14 points (7 goals) in 7 U18 WJC games
D-1 season:
- 5 points (4 goals) in 2 U20 WJC games, before the COVID cancellation (this tourney was "annulled", so they aren't official WJC points, but it's meaningful for sample size arguments)
- 8 points (4 goals) in 7 U20 WJC games, after rescheduling
- 7 points (6 goals) in 4 U18 WJC games
Draft season:
- 23 points (9 goals) in 7 games at the U20 WJC
So overall:
- 11 U18 WJC games, putting up 21 points (13 goals), at age 15/16
- 16 U20 WJC games, putting up 36 points (17 goals), at age 16/17
He's by far the all time greatest pre-draft WJC player ever, and the sample size is not that small (27 games across all U20 and U18 tourneys). I really don't think you should just write off all time great performances like this as meaningless.
2) Bedard's game is somehow less teammate influenced than Kane's
I don't see any reason to think this, to think that Bedard's scoring is sort of "fixed" and independent of who he plays with. For example, we've seen him play with top talent at the WJCs, and he literally scored more points than anyone else his age has, ever. His CHL numbers, while great, are not the greatest of all time, so to me that suggests that yeah, he can take good advantage of the talent around him.
Looking at overall draft-year CHL stats:
- Kane's 2.50 PPG is slightly higher than Bedard's 2.41 (Kane 3.5% higher)
- However, the 22/23 WHL is a 3.45 goals/game league, while the 06/07 OHL was a 3.73 goals/game league (OHL 8.1% higher)
- And the Knights specifically were a lot more stacked, they demolished teams and ran up the score easily. Bedard's Pats scored 3.85 goals/game, Kane's Knights scored 4.57 goals/game (18.9% higher)
I definitely think that, if we had some magical ability to swap Kane with Bedard on the 06/07 Knights, Bedard outscores what Kane actually did by a decent margin. And likewise if we had some magical ability to swap draft-year Kane with Bedard on the 22/23 Pats, same. Not massive gaps, but I think looking at both the WHL being more defensive/harder to score in, and the teammate talent gap, we'd be looking at Bedard being 10% or so higher than Kane.
With all that being said, Kane is amazing, a top 5 American player of all time, and there's an argument he's #1. One of the top wingers of his generation, and he should have been hyped more in his draft year. But if you didn't know what Kane became, you were judging them purely based on their draft years, I think it's Bedard very easily:
- GOAT WJC performances vs. good WJC performances, massive gap there
- Bedard 1" taller (5'10" vs. 5'9", though Kane has since grown to 5'10"), and a massive 25 lbs heavier (185 lbs vs. 160 lbs) than draft year Kane
- Bedard's CHL numbers more impressive (IMO) when you take into account league and teammate context, not even accounting for him being 8 months younger
- And just overall tools/eye test, I think you give that to Bedard. IMO hands, skating and hockey IQ are really very similar, but Bedard has a big edge on shot, and as noted before was bigger/stronger at the draft (despite being younger)
There was a lot of draft-year concern about Kane being very small (significantly smaller than draft-year Bedard), and his numbers being inflated by being an older player, on a stacked team, in a very offence-oriented OHL. Those concerns don't exist with Bedard, and he has the GOAT WJC performances. These are all very significant factors in prospect evaluation, if we aren't giving ourselves the 20/20 hindsight of the amazing player Kane has become. I watched Knights and WJC games, and followed the draft in 2007, and same today with the Pats/WJC/draft. The difference between how analysts/experts talk about Bedard vs. how they talked about Kane is astronomical, and IMO Bedard looks quite a bit more dominant (and projectable) on the ice than Kane did back them.
Bedard is stylistically more similar to Kane than Sid/McDavid, no doubt. But just looking at how you'd value/project them, all in their draft years, I think Bedard is closer to Sid/McDavid than Kane, he's significantly ahead of draft year Kane in most ways.
leaderpost.com
